Mark Durkan likens politicians awaiting US, Irish and British Governments to Dorothy and Wizard of Oz
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He made the comparison while discussing the effectiveness of the institutions of the Good Friday Agreement (GFA) at the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee (NIAC).
“At times, we have lost the sense of our own agency in many of these things. I have often used the example of the Wizard of Oz syndrome. We look to the Americans and the EU to help us with things, and we ask the two Governments to do things – things that we could be sorting out for ourselves.
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Hide Ad"The Wizard of Oz did not give anybody courage and he did not give anybody intelligence; he just told people what their own capacity was,” said the former SDLP leader and co-author of the GFA.
Simon Hoare, the Chair of the NIAC, concurred: “And then we realise that there was not a Wizard of Oz; it was an old man behind a curtain with a bit of smoke.”
Mr. Durkan said: “Exactly. A lot of this is performative politics being used. I used to joke with David Trimble that he could not pass a brink without teetering on it, and we all had to share in the drama.
"That is all good political stuff for its time, but the fact is that if people are electing an Assembly and, in turn, an Executive is serving in that Assembly, it must live up to its own responsibilities a lot more.”